Orla Walsh graduated from Griffith College’s H.Dip in Arts in Drama Education in June 2019. She’s now a drama teacher, working at The Little Duke Theatre in Drogheda. Orla was a mature student, fitting study in around parenting two kids. Here, she shares how she made it all work – and whether or not the challenges were worth it…

I did my undergraduate degree in Media and Theatre Studies, and at the time I really loved the theatre side of things. I thought that’s where my life would end up going, but after college, the reality of bills and mortgage repayments hit.

I went into media instead, and worked in that industry for years, first in media sales for Channel 4, then in media recruitment, before eventually setting up my own business. Those were stressful years, with both myself and my husband balancing intense workloads. I was leaving our house in Meath at 6am, starting work for 8am, doing a four hour round trip each day, getting home to pick up the kids and then logging back on in the evening to finish off my to-do list from earlier. That cycle went on for a very long time.

Then, six years ago, my mum passed away from ovarian cancer. She was only 58. To be honest, that was what gave me the kickstart I needed. I thought, ‘What am I doing? Do I like the work I do every day? Is this where I want to be?’

Taking the leap

The course at Griffith College was an ideal fit because it suited my interests, but it was also clear there were opportunities for employment after graduation. That was very important to me.

I had a mortgage and two kids, and in that situation, you can’t just say, ‘Oh, this is what I’d like to do.’ You have to be confident that the course is going to take you somewhere you want to go, and that it fits with whatever your idea of success is. I knew going into the H.Dip that there were career prospects on the other side.

What followed were a lot of very frank conversations at home. We had to sit down and talk about all the practicalities of me going back to college. Life as everyone knew it was going to change – I was going to be studying, we were going to be down financially, and between myself and my husband we had to balance a whole new schedule.

I decided to treat the course like a job, and I asked the people in my life to think of it like that too. That’s where I had to say to my husband, ‘Two nights a week, you have to get home from work by 5pm, and that’s non-negotiable, because I have to get into Griffith by 6pm. And every second Saturday, I’m out the door too.’

Orla Walsh Orla Walsh

Supportive classmates

There were plenty of people in the same boat as me on the course, which was brilliant. I remember being really nervous the night before we started. I thought, ‘I’m going to walk in and they’ll all think I’m the teacher.’ And then in reality, I walked in and saw plenty of people who were my age.

Like me, they’d had a ‘this is my one life’ moment and decided to take the leap. As well as being likeminded in terms of interests, we had experienced other careers, we had already swam that sea and decided we wanted something different. We had great connections in that class, and we were all learning from one another’s point of view, undergrads and mature students.

The course was intense, but so rewarding right from the start. It was a good kind of challenge, because suddenly I loved what I was doing and learning about.

From a family perspective, I’m really glad that my kids saw me working hard for something I wanted, pushing myself out of my comfort zone, or studying for an assignment and then being delighted with the result.

And we got to have some new shared experiences too – my son Finn was starting secondary school around the same time as I was starting college, so we were both nervous together!

Skills for life

My previous career stood to me in lots of unexpected ways. On a really practical level, I found I was much more able to cope with deadlines than I had been during my first time around at college.

At Griffith, they would give us a calendar of due dates for assignments, and the first thing I’d do was map out a plan of how I’d achieve each task. I don’t think that once in my college years or in my 20s, I’d ever sat down and mapped something out like that. But after years in a professional environment, you learn the importance of getting tasks done.

The course has stood to me in so many ways. I was really lucky in that I graduated from my course at Griffith right into a job, thanks to my work placement. I started off teaching at The Little Duke Theatre in Drogheda just once a week, and I’m still there now.

If someone had told me at the start of the course that I’d finish by stepping into a role I loved, I wouldn’t have believed them, but that’s what happened. I’m so glad I did it. I’m teaching a summer camp at the moment with a load of kids, but this time two or three years ago I was still sitting in a boardroom.

As you go through life, you start to doubt yourself and doubt what you’re capable of, but through the course I learned about skills I didn’t even know I had.

Build your career step by step with one of Griffith College’s 170+ courses. Choose from our range of flexible study modes, including blended learning. Browse the full range of courses here and click here to find out about our next open day on September 2.